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by
Julia Browne
I thought we’d got away with Friday the 13th.
Nothing especially nasty happened, and on Saturday the 14th a
new rear tyre went on the XL with barely a murmur, and although the
front wheel bearings put up a fight at every step, they lost the
argument and were installed whether they liked it or not. On Sunday the
15th was the Exmoor Clouds… It had been raining all week
and yet I never thought that perhaps I should just stay home and avoid a
confrontation with the conditions on that Sunday. It stayed dark and wet
all morning. Not the fire-hose of Celia’s famous Edinburgh report but
a steady thick drizzle that found every entry point in your clothing and
exploited it. When we got to the start at Ralegh’s Cross, a mere
twenty miles up the road, we were already soaked to the skin and unable
to see a blooming thing through our once clean and de-misted goggles.
The first special test was getting our numbers to
stick to the wet bikes. However carefully dried with bog roll from the
ladies, they remained too damp for the insulating tape and it was only
by using half the roll that we ever succeeded. We took so long that our
start times soon came up and we were on our way to the first section,
Steep Lane at Wimbleball. It was a bit more challenging than last year,
but still not too much trouble. (Although, when even Buster was footing
on the way to the ‘Section Begins’, I began to wonder how the day
would fare.)
Port Lane came up nice and early this year, and to
minimise the delays, the policy was that, if you footed, you would be
politely but firmly told to turn around and not be allowed to clog up
the upper end of the lane. A handful of people inexplicably cleaned Port
Lane – amongst them Buster (naturally), Ray Gerring and Clif Jones on
his WR400. Mike went up ahead of me, vanished into the gloom and mist
… and by virtue of great speed, some dabbing and gobs of bloody
mindedness, got all the way to the top before anyone could stop him. I’ve
never climbed Bury even in the dry, I wasn’t going to improve on a day
like this.
At Northmoor Mike got a nice wide line through the
deep mud off the start and cleaned it. I copied his line but my front
wheel washed out and I collected my first – but not last – 12 of the
day. We rode up the steep side of Court Down, and down to South Hill. It
proved to be needlessly difficult for me. I got around the first corner
on the grassy track and spun to a stop. Then I fell off. Then I couldn’t
get moving again. Then Mike came roaring past me screaming, "Baulk!
Baulk!" which made me feel really good. I eventually found enough
grip to pull away again and met him at the top. We all know that my
self-inflicted problem is that I don’t ride aggressively enough to
stay out of trouble, and I suddenly felt that I should be at home
playing with my dolls and not out mixing it with the big boys. However,
we pushed on down Yellowcombe and on to Ski Slope.
The marshal was obviously concerned with keeping
everyone moving, as he gave us a useful tip about where people were
getting into trouble. Heeding his advice we both gunned up clean, and
got airborne over the hummocks at the top. At Pin Quarry, which Mike
cleaned and I paddled, I began to understand the value of using the
clutch as a brake when you are stuck and the bike starts to roll
backwards and you can’t get a foot onto the back brake to stop it
sliding away. A skill which would be useful later… It took us half an
hour and many miles to find Allercott. We followed the ‘clears’
instructions out of Pin Quarry but actually took the ‘fails’ route,
and this messed us up a treat. We ended up riding Stone Lane – meeting
loads of cyclists riding a two-day Polaris Trailquest - instead of a
completely different RUPP, because the route card actually matched what
was on the ground! As we passed the top of Weber’s Post in the certain
knowledge that something had gone seriously adrift with our
route-finding we took the decision to head for Wheddon Cross and pick up
from there.
I didn’t remember Allercott all that well; the mud
at the start was the same, then I got dumped on the first climb and
struggled for several minutes to walk the bike backwards down the
gradient to a point where I could get back on and beat a retreat. I was
knackered by the time I got it facing downhill and of course there was
no way it was going to start again. (Why the hell have I got an XR600 at
home when I still can’t manage this bloody thing?) Only the
start marshal offering to kick it for me persuaded it to fire into life.
At the road, Mike was nowhere to be seen. My debacle had taken so long
that he’d gone looking for me, he even rode the section again as none
of the marshals had seen me. I wanted to go home. No-one forced either
of us to sign up on an XL500, and I’m not looking for the sympathy
vote, but by God we were finding it hard going.
The way to Muddlecombe was unclear but we did find
it, a right-angled bend through a hedge followed by a straight blast up
the bracken-covered hillside, nearly as steep as Ski Slope. I got
through the hedge and looked up (and up and up) and I saw Mike at the
top making a gesture which I took to mean "Get a move on!" –
and it did – so I cracked it open. The bike dug in and started to fly
(as I remember it) and the next thing I’m clear about is sitting in a
dazed heap under the bike at the top looking up at the marshal saying,
"Did I clear the ‘Section Ends’?" I wasn’t the only
rider to get to the top and fall over, and Geoff Tipper buried himself
so deep in the bracken that only the top his head was visible! After
this treatment Hindon Farm was a nice non-threatening section - and the
threats were far from over.
The route card sent us though Minehead, where I heard
the first metallic rattling sounds of imminent mechanical failure, and
chose to pretend I hadn’t. We rode up over Timberscombe and picked up
the road to Aville Ball, where I was trying hard to pretend that the
noises were my keys rattling, or my fillings, or anything except the
recognisable sound of a chain beginning to snap. At Aville Ball I asked
Mike for the adjustable wrench, saying, "My chain is making
self-destruct noises; I need to tighten it right now," and Mike
said, "For God’s sake, woman, stop fussing, it’s not going to
come off." Then we saw the snapped link, still holding on by a few
millimetres. A couple of minutes work with a spare split link saw the
thing nailed back together and we were on our way.
Aville Ball claimed marks from every solo in the
field, and not all of them from the restart. Mike Crocker and Trevor
Griffiths on their Yamaha Wasp were one of only two cleans, the other
being Courtney Yandle’s Norton Wasp. Where the section changes tracks
sharp left then right through the trees and starts to climb, I didn’t
shut off, vaguely saw someone running for cover – sorry – and gunned
on to the restart box, where I had a fight to get going again. I made
good use of my newly-found skill of using the clutch as a brake and
eventually paddled up to the top. Mike wasn’t so lucky. The bike
stalled in the box, he couldn’t hold it on the front brake while he
tried to start it, and it slid away from him, only stopping when it came
up against a tree. I ran down through the trees to help and found a
hissy-fit in progress. He got it restarted after about quarter of an
hour. I think I heard a touch of valve-float as he rode it up, and they
were definitely floating as he gave it a good kicking at the top.
Vinegar Hill had a restart this time, and I saw from
Mike’s head that he was having great trouble with it. By now I was
just riding to survive, so I made the decision to ride straight through,
and not to tire myself further struggling with something I would never
beat. When I got back down to the bottom of Vinegar Hill I was greeted
by Vinegar Woman. "You didn’t do the restart," she accused
me. I agreed. "You’ve got a fail," she said abruptly. She
was very cross.
At the second special test at Maddocks I was waiting
for Mike, saw him going great guns up the track and start to turn, when
his chain jumped clean off the sprocket and he began to roll back down
the hill. I intended to throw my bike up against a tree and run to help
him, but at this stage it turned into a comedy of errors. As I threw the
bike I fell over, the bike fell on top of me, pinning me by one foot,
and at the same time Mike lost the fight to stop his bike rolling away
and fell over as well. The Timekeeper was marvellous, didn’t laugh,
but equally, didn’t know which of us to pick up first!
We tightened the chain so it could never come off
again and rode on to Druids which turned into another nightmare. Mike
struggled all the way up with his, and then had to come back and
struggle up the second half with mine. By now Mike and I were both aware
that we were losing the fight with the bikes and had gone into survival
mode, grimly trying to finish. No heroes on solos cleaned Druids, and
only Mike Crocker and his flying machine were unpenalised on this
section.
Tarr Cott is a long section, and so there is a bit of
a delay at the bottom. We took the opportunity to have a sugar-fix, but
I was so tired that I even made a hash of unwrapping my crunch bar. The
section was a joy to ride. The restart was cancelled – it all helps -
and so it was a straight run up a nicely surfaced track and out into the
field at the top. By eventually ignoring the route-card, we got to the
final section at Tim Wood, where we found the Lidstone boys (who had
taken the correct route, and thought the route-card was fine) and
nothing else. No marshals. No-one. We were gradually joined by other
riders and two of the cyclists on the Polaris Trailquest. One of the
cyclists was in a real mess with exhaustion, and her friend asked if
someone could give her a lift back to the top of the long hill that they
had – wrongly – just descended. We sensed a kindred, worn out,
spirit, so Mike took the girl up to the top and then managed to carry
her bicycle up as well! He didn’t say it was easy.
After we had been waiting for half an hour or so, a
unanimous decision was reached: that Stan Howitt and Zoe Elsmore would
ride their outfit up, and then mark the section to get the trial moving
again. The section was much steeper than it looked and by virtue of my
passive riding I nearly ran out of momentum on the second half. By luck
alone I got through the section-ends board unassisted (Zoe doesn’t
know how much luck!) It was a long ride out to the road, and I
got baulked by Mike on a sharp slippery bend; baulked, that is, and then
blasted with bits of mud and gravel. As I wobbled my way feebly up the
track to the top I was struck by an idea; if I fell off now, I was too
tired to pick the bike up and get it started again. Mike was a long way
ahead and he wouldn’t be rushing back down to see where I was and I
had no idea if anyone was behind me. So – don’t fall off, Browne.
Rarely have we been so glad to see the finish of a
trial. There had been moments of triumph – getting up Port Lane, for
Mike – and moments where dolls house collecting seemed like an
appealing pastime. A real bonus was that as we signed off, Mike was
given his trophy for winning the class last year. I think he deserved it
for this year, having ridden two bikes (his own and mine) around parts
of the course.
The cyclists at the finish were interested in what we
had been doing and a German cyclist with his beard in a plait was
intrigued that you could ride a motorbike on a bridle-way… I’m not
sure that he quite understood the difference between a bridle-way and a
RUPP even after a long chat because he concluded, "In Germany, they
would shoot you for riding over country like this!" Perhaps
we are luckier than we think, and not only because of our facial hair.
Mike Crocker and Trevor Griffiths must have worked
very hard for their first place overall, with only a six on Muddlecombe
to blot their scoresheet and recording special test times not far adrift
of the faster solos. Tiddles and Ian Bell won the Sidecars. KMX mounted
Ray Gerring came out on top of class A1 with Buster lying second, only
three points behind him and Dick Lidstone third. Class A2 was won by
Clif Jones with his very nice-looking WR400F (and any time he wants to
swap bikes, let me know…) while Chris Groves was second and Andrew
Fowler third. Class B was won by Mike Maddocks on an XL500 which is now
free to any sort of home…
It’s been a long time since the bike has managed to
give me this much of a kicking. I haven’t been able to run up stairs
all today; sitting on my bicycle this morning was uncomfortable, and
pushing the pedals around was downright painful. Having said that, Jack
Pouncy once told me that life’s pleasurable memories are made up of
the times that you were fighting adversity. I know we are going to talk
about this one for a while.
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